Don't Panic
by Spunky Lily
Summary: [War of the Worlds 2005] Starting off with an alternate ending to the movie, the Ferriers realize that their excursion to Boston may have been a huge mistake.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **I saw War of the Worlds last night and, wow, was it totally amazing. The ending was a little too neatly wrapped, though, so I decided to make an alternate ending/sequel (maybe).

Oh, and special thanks to Jack E. Peace, who made me post this again ;)

**Warnings: **Spoilers, implied character death(s), language

**Disclaimer: **H.G. Wells owns the plot, Steven Spielberg owns the characters, The Beach Boys own themselves (I think) and I own Robbie (I wish! God, he's so much hotter than Tom Cruise… um, anyway…).

* * *

**Don't Panic**

**Chapter One**

_"Bones sinking like stones_

_All that we've fought for_

_Homes, places we've grown_

_All of us are done for."_

_—_Coldplay, 'Don't Panic'

Ray Ferrier gazed upon his final destination, a decimated Boston Massachusetts, with a pessimist's eyes, and it was difficult not to. Columns of smoke churned from above the ruins, making the overcast day seem even more clouded. This was _it_? They'd been carjacked by the masses, seen far more horrifying sights than any human being should be forced to fix their eyes upon, fuck, he'd even _killed_ a man; he and his children—_child_—had been through far more than Hell to get to this point, and it seemed all for naught. The carpet of the sprawling crimson 'fertilizer' softened the highway on Ray and his daughter's feet, but it served as a reminder of the previous night all too well. Cines of it had even crawled up the green sign before them, slightly obscuring the 'City of Boston'. He had wanted to turn away, but denying Rachel any hope that her mother and stepfather and grandparents were still alive would probably tear the little ten-year-old apart, even more so than whatever fate laid in the direction towards Boston.

In the distant city, he could see movement amongst the skyscrapers, and his panging heart sunk into his shoes. Rachel obviously saw the tripods too, since she'd tightened the grip on his arm and whimpered almost inaudibly. The mass exodus of refugees and soldiers reluctantly marched on, in spite of the city razed to the ground before them, and the peril that lay with it.

By the time their feet laced the city, the emigration had broken up to hide in the shadows and to not appear too conspicuous, and Ray and Rachel were now on their own. He remembered where Mary Ann's parents had lived, but it was hard to navigate with street signs obliterated and landmarks reduced to a point where they got lost a lot more than once. Passing an old warehouse, a familiar siren blasted through the air, confirming the presence of the tripods. The open street revealed a blinding beam coming from the eye-like lens in the front of a vehicle, reducing a steeple on a church to a crumbling torrent of brick. Rachel's azure eyes fixed on this sight as if she were under hypnosis. "Hey, hot girl," Ray urged, almost sounding as if he were trying to make a joke of it, tugging Rachel to the opposite side of the vacant downtown street. She was still staring behind her, until Ray turned her head to face him, and then kneeled to her eye level. "W have to keep moving…" she was still unresponsive. "Dammit, Rachel, talk to me!"

"Dad," she whispered. "It's—unfair. To come this far, to get this close… without," she chopped her sentence short, trying to force the next word out without crying hysterically. "_Robbie_." Rachel threw herself at her father, letting her reserved emotions go.

Ray stood up, holding her tiny, fragile little body against his chest, and rubbing her back a little. "She's my little deuce coupe, you don't know what I got…" he sang under his breath, and Rachel offered an awkward, teary smile.

* * *

Crisp, blackened leaves swirled in mini-tornadoes at the intersection in front of Mary Ann's—well, technically just her parents'—house. The breeze picked up even more now, tossing the dead foliage in Rachel's tousled blonde hair. Still clinging to Ray for dear life, she shifted a little towards the old brick home, leaping out of her father's arms and running like she'd never ran before, flying up the steps and nearly crashing into the door with excitement. The door was already unlocked, and Rachel used all of her might to shove it away from her path. Ray could hear her shriek from his place outside. "ROBBIE!"

At first, he'd thought his mind had deceived him, but upon further investigation (he'd sprinted up the steps, following her), Rachel's words proved true. There was Robbie, but he didn't look too happy to see them. Rachel was sticking to Robbie's frayed and slightly incinerated clothing, and Ray noticed a shiny, pink discoloration from his son's neck to a few inches below his wide eyes. His face had been burned. "Rae," he said, acknowledging his sister's hug, then added, "Dad."

"Robbie—where's Mom and Tim?" Rachel asked hurriedly.

Silence.

"Where _are _they Robbie?" she shook him furiously.

"I—they're—gone…"

"Where did they go?"

Robbie's eyes flashed towards the wall opposite, and Ray and Rachel looked towards it. A smear of blood had been wiped across the wallpaper, and their grandpa's body lying on the floor next to it.

"They're _not _dead!" Rachel contradicted, suddenly letting go. "You're lying. You—you're the most horrible—you liar!" tears trickled down her face. "They're alive!" she sobbed.

"Just—shut up!" Ray yelled. Suddenly seeing Rachel's shocked expression, he reached out for her hand, but she withdrew it angrily.

The whole room echoed in silence, until a few scattered leaves blew into the living room through the door left wide open.

"Was it the aliens?" Rachel broke the silence hollowly.

"No…" Robbie answered emotionlessly. "It—it was people."


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Thanks for all of the encouraging reviews, this couldn't have been done without you guys!

**Another Disclaimer (Ugh): **All of the products in this story belong to their respective companies (though I own some of them in my kitchen), H.G. Wells has the story, the Spielberg has the characters, and I still have Robbie. Chained in my basement.

* * *

**Don't Panic**

**Chapter Two**

_"Sanctuary... is a word which here means a small, safe place in a troubling world, like an oasis in a vast desert or an island in a stormy sea. The Baudelaires enjoyed their evening in the sanctuary they had built together, but in their hearts, they knew the troubling world was just outside."_

—Lemony Snicket, _Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events_

It felt intensely awkward, staying at the place that night. It wasn't like they had much of a choice; it wasn't like there were tons of people offering sanctuary in this crippled city. Even if there was, Ray wasn't so sure he'd be so trusting. Not after what happened in Ogilvy's basement. So, in the house they stayed, and both Robbie and Ray made sure that Rachel didn't make any close encounters with the bodies. The corpses had been moved to the grandparents' bedroom, but Ray noted that there were only two. Mary Ann and Tim's were nowhere to be seen. This sparked a little bit of hope in his empty body; the minuscule hope that they were still alive. Once the sun had gone down, Ray gathered the small amount of food that hadn't been looted and brought it up to Mary Ann's old bedroom. The room had remained unchanged over the years. Even that _E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial_ poster was still there, sunwashed and curling at the edges where it hadn't been taped down.

"Hey, remember that movie, Rachel?" Robbie grinned smugly; trying fish with his hands in the box of Cheese Nips and make a gesture to the poster at the same time. "_E.T. phone home_," he quoted mockingly as Rachel dipped began the covers of Mary Ann's bed.

"Shut up!" came her muffled voice beneath the comforter.

"Don't tell me Rach was scared of E.T.," Ray laughed a little.

"Scared was an understatement. She was pretty much petrified and wouldn't talk to Mom for, like, a week," Robbie explained, his eyes falling on the faded poster again. "God, she loved that movie. Mom, I mean."

Ray got up from the foot of Mary Ann's bed to the window. There weren't any tripods in sight, but the burning city was ominous enough. "Here's guessing that _they_ didn't come for Reese's Pieces." He looked back at Rachel, who'd emerged from under the covers, her face still slightly reddened in embarrassment.

Rachel, who'd grown hungry for not eating anything since the hummus back at her father's house, looked longingly at the pile of food on the floor. "Why'd the people leave so much?" she asked softly.

"I think there's a theme here," Ray replied. "Cheese Nips, Easy Mac, skim milk, frozen pizza, Easy Cheese… they must've been lacrosse intolerant, or whatever that is."

"Lactose intolerant," Rachel was quick to correct.

"Like I said, whatever," said Ray, a little annoyed, and reached out for the Easy Cheese, spraying it in his mouth. It was a lot of dairy products that all pretty much tasted the same, but he hadn't eaten in days and his stomach snarled greedily for more.

"Robbie," Rachel whispered, resting her chin on her knees and consuming some of the Cheese Nips in ravenous amounts. "How—what happened?"

Robbie, who'd already eaten his fill, was pulling off his shirt and flaunting even more burns running down his right side, these pinkish red patches accompanied by blisters. It looked even more eerie than it usually would have in the light of the flames in the distance. "What do you mean?"

"What do I _mean_?" Rachel repeated, sounding injured. "How did you survive, make it all the way here, by yourself?"

"I…" the teenager looked horrified. "All I remember… there was fire… and—there was this soldier guy and he—he pulled me in the humvee thing and—he, I don't know… it was all so fast… we got the—the bottom of the hill, near this house, and he… he got shot… or something. Then I ran. I tried to fight, but all I did was run. I should've died… I deserved it…"

Rachel's light eyebrows furrowed together. She'd gotten out of the bed, and stood in front of her brother. "I'm glad you ran. You think I want you to be dead? I love you."

"You are so full of crap," Robbie laughed, and, surprisingly, so did Rachel and Ray.

Rachel offered a thin smile to her father. "Weren't you going to teach us how to play poker?"

Ray paused, considering this. "Yeah… yeah, I did, didn't I? Well, I don't think I have cards on me—" he dug through his pocket, and something cold and hard fell out. It was—it was that stone thing… that frozen rock that had been near the deep crevice the lightning tore open. It was glowing iridescently in the faint light. Despite the sudden interest of the object coming from his children, he cast it aside, and unveiled that old Bicycle playing card deck still intact inside its box. Ray unsheathed it, grinning oddly.

"Hey—wait, do you know how to play 'Go Fish'?" Rachel asked, her eyes brightening in the semi-darkness.

"Go—what?"

"Dad, you don't know how to play Go Fish?" Robbie shook his head in fake shame of his father. "Then Rach'll have to teach you. She's quite the Go Fish expert, so you'll have some competition."

"Well, at least you inherited the ole Ferrier card shark gene," Ray's grin broadened.

* * *

An hour later, a frown and a frustrated, creased forehead replaced Ray's grin. He was getting his ass kicked by a little girl—his own _daughter_—thirty years his junior.

"Do you have any sevens?" Rachel inquired sweetly, delighted in her winning streak.

Ray glared at her, surrendering his seven of hearts. She placed the pair of sevens on the carpeting, and beamed with her crooked teeth. She held no more cards in her hand. He'd lost. Again. Well, Robbie did, too, but apparently, he'd gathered up enough time to get used to it. Ray, however, was a different story.

"Oh, you'll see, one of these times, I'll beat you with your Go Fish… mind… games," he struggled to finish the sentence.

"Um, Ray," Robbie began, gaining his father's attention by the horribly timed use of 'Ray'. "It's—it's—it's," he attempting to fight off a huge yawn as he spoke. "Late. Maybe we should save this for tomorrow."

"Yeah," Ray agreed softly, rubbing his eyes.

"You would've lost anyway," Rachel mumbled, smiling slyly as she retreated to Mary Ann's bed ("Back problems," she'd explained effortlessly, and Robbie and Ray didn't argue), while Robbie and Ray laid on the floor, propping their heads against pillows they'd snagged from the couch.

"'Night Dad, 'night Robbie," Rachel whispered, snuggling one of her plastic horses, Captain Oats.

Ray finally regained his smile, in the darkness. The day, these past few ones… they'd been the worst he'd ever lived through. At least now, temporarily, there was a sanctuary for them to take rest in. Their oasis. But, he knew, this was probably only the calm before the storm.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:**I really want all of you reviewers that I appreciate your feedback more than you could ever know. Thanks a bunch.

Oh, and Jackie, I'm going to call that girl who wrote _Bleed Like Me_ and totally intimidate her into working. Oh, she'll do it once I'm finished with her.

**Disclaimer: **Let me make it very clear that I have a mortal fear of lawyers, and, for all intents and purposes, do not own the Ferriers (except for Robbie, you all know that very, very well ), because Spielberg does. And... I don't. M'kay?

**

* * *

**

**Don't Panic**

**Chapter Three**

_"Looking so long at these pictures of you  
But I never hold onto your heart  
Looking so long for the words to be true  
But always just breaking apart  
My pictures of you…"_

—The Cure, 'Pictures of You'

As it turned out, sleep wasn't very easy to come by. Ray's eyes kept wandering, always finding their way to the window, the view of chaos and destruction and a smoldering city of despair. He found himself pondering how long… how long did they have until running was inevitable? How long was it 'til the light of dawn would illuminate the day and shake the menacing shadows of night? How long did they have until one of them was gone forever… dead?

Ray rolled over, searching for a comfortable position that didn't seem to exist. His body now faced Rachel, squirming in an uneasy sleep and twisting the sheets into whirlwinds of cloth. Even in the absence of most light, he could see her eyes searching wildly behind the lids, scouring the dark. Nightmares. They were bound to happen. Hauntings worth screaming because of all of the things you'd seen and done were the price to pay for going on. Carrying those memories was a burden no child should've ever had to bear.

He chased these excruciating thoughts away; it was too hard to think them anymore. He needed something to occupy his time other than thinking. His arms pressed against the floor, lifting his torso so that he could sit up and examine the room more carefully. Sitting before him, now that he turned his body a little, was a shelf filled with books from years past, though none seemed quite stimulating enough for the occasion. Ray's fingers brushed against their spines, until he stopped at a particularly thick one with no title evident. Curious, he slipped it out, letting the other novels collapse in the space left behind. He stared at the cover for a moment, and let a laugh slip away. _Memories_, it said in peeling gold letters. It was Mary Ann's scrapbook. He pushed aside the jacket and gazed at the contents. As he leafed through the pages, he saw most of them contained snapshots of a young Mary Ann and her friends and family, with construction paper and little random objects providing a background. As he hit the middle, though, he saw himself in some of the pictures. There was even a strip of photos from one of those silly photo booths on Coney Island. In Mary Ann's handwriting, it read on the paper next to it "Ray and Mary, '85". Wow. He'd never seen himself look so happy. Or Mary Ann.

God, was he ever proven wrong.

He turned a couple of pages before the maelstrom of Robbie pictures hit. There was the card that identified his name when he was in the nursery, a few more pictures of just Robbie… and then… there was the three of them, Ray, with his Yankee baseball cap hanging a bit askew on his head, Mary Ann sitting in her hospital bed, glowing with Robbie in her arms. They were happy. Though, Robbie was a pretty weird looking kid, Ray had to admit. Those eyes, like, took up half of the baby's face. Okay, it was an exaggeration, but the eyes were even bigger than his mouth was. So there.

The pictures including Ray diminished a little, with less of him, and more of a young Robbie and Mary Ann. A few years had been almost completely disregarded until the other flood of pictures came, with Rachel. She'd been a load of trouble when it came to all those pictures. Even when she was a baby, she'd flail her arms to conceal her face from the camera, and had a healthy fear of the flash button. These pictures were only a small percentage of the pictures actually taken, these were just the ones in which they'd managed to get a good look at Rachel's face. And, then, came the last picture. The one with eight-year-old Rachel and a scowling thirteen-year-old Robbie and Mary Ann and he back in Jersey. The picture Ray had himself. The cutoff after that was kind of frightening. It was as if life had stopped after that moment. He shut the album with a loud clap and a rising cloud of dust from the pages.

He'd kind of wished he hadn't done it once Rachel had been aroused. There was a mixture of contempt and anguish on her face as she sat up in Mary Ann's bed. She stared at her hand, twisting her face to rid herself of tears. Rachel whimpered, continuing to fight away her cries that she'd so easily given into before.

"Rach?" Ray called softly, scooting himself over to the bed, bumping Robbie and waking him up, too. "What's up, a bad dream?" he guessed, trying to play the concern without getting frustrated. She shook her head. "Is it—I told you, Rachel!" he added, noticing her prolonged glances at her pointer finger. "It's going to get infected."

"No," she replied firmly. "It's going to come out—"

"Just let me—"

"No!"

"Hun, if it hurts that much, just let me take it out."

"No, you're gonna—"

"Just—" Ray said between gritted teeth. "Stay—still…" he examined it for a moment. Okay, Ray wasn't the smartest guy in the world, and he obviously didn't know everything, but he did know that Rachel's finger wasn't supposed to have bright red streaks extending from it, and it wasn't supposed to ooze sickening, vomit-yellow pus like a grotesque human volcano. Well, they weren't exactly in sanitary land for the past few days…

"It hurts," she informed him, her whole fragile body growing shaky with tears.

"Robbie, go get some… hydrogen peroxide… or—and tweezers… and… band-aids… or whatever else might help." Ray ordered. Robbie, still half-asleep, marched away.

"Dad, no, don't take it out, please…" Rachel's eyes expanded.

"Rachel," he retorted, wishing he could remember her middle name at a time like this. "It's gonna get even worse if I keep it in there."

This time, before she could open her mouth to counter, Robbie reappeared. "I couldn't find much," the teen explained. "They took a lot of stuff from the medicine cabinet, too, but, lucky us, they didn't leave the Spongebob Band-Aids or the disinfectant behind. Woopidity doo."

"What about tweezers?" Ray snapped.

"Couldn't find any." Robbie shrugged, his face turning sympathetic towards Rachel.

"So you're not getting it out?" Rachel asked, sounding a little too relieved.

"No, I'll just pull it out," Ray clarified. "Look, Rach, I'm not going to lie to you. It's gonna hurt. But, if you let me do this… I'll—"

"—let you stick all the Spongebob Band-Aids on Dad's face." Robbie finished with a triumphant smile. Ray shot a glare, but gave in.

"Okay, let me see your hand," Ray commanded, and she tentatively held it out. "I'll pull it out on the count of three… one… two—"

"OUCH!" Rachel withdrew her hand, the splinter out, but a mixture of blood and an excretion of pus flowing freely from where it had once been. "You said on _three_! I wasn't ready!"

"You wouldn't have let me if I didn't do it sooner." Ray admitted.

Once Rachel had gained enough trust back from her brother and father, she let them douse her finger in disinfectant, though this hurt even more, and Ray wiped away a collection of a blackish substance and some of the pus with a Kleenex, but it still looked intimidating and harmful.

"They're gonna have to chop off your finger, Rae," Robbie teased, wrapping a Band-Aid with little Patrick's all over it around the affected area.

"No, they aren't," she said instantly, grabbing the box from her brother and remove the sticky paper from the Band-Aid. "Are they?" she pressed it against a scratch on Ray's forehead.

"Yes, yes they will," Ray said sarcastically. "And they'll send your finger in wrapping paper back to your house."

Rachel, clever enough to understand the distinct art that was cynicism, replied dryly, "Ha, ha."

"Hey, Dad, what's this?" Robbie picked up the discarded photo album from the floor.

"Nothing," said his father, ignoring the fact that he'd even glanced at it. Another item left on the carpeting made itself noticed as well. The rock he'd thrown was now glowing again, much brighter than before, filling the room with an eerie white light.

"What's going on?" Rachel's voice cracked, dropping a Band-Aid. The stone had darkened again, as quickly as it had lit up, but, now, another light replaced it.

The lightning was back.

From all of the illumination it had provided, the trio could see the beams striking against of the tripods, some of these machines barely able to hold themselves up. Suddenly, Ogilvy's words shot through Ray's mind: _"These are only the first. They'll keep coming."_

"We're leaving."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: **It's been a while, but I've been out of town for two weeks and my computer's broken, so I had to use my cousin's to dish out this chapter. It's not the greatest, since it's more of a transitional chapter, and the next one will be much, much better. And more quickly updated.

* * *

**Don't Panic**

**Chapter Four**

_"Hazel, the field—it's covered in blood!"_

_—_Fiver, Watership Down

With not a single word spoken between the three, they assembled a collection of the few precious items they'd acquired; the bottle of disinfectant, their food, and anything else that they could jam in their pockets and Rachel's horsey backpack. Ray even shamefully forced the reel of pictures from Coney Island into his back pocket, knowing that he might not see these photographs ever again. In silence, they'd met in the foyer, and set off hand in hand. Robbie and Ray kept Rachel in the middle, as if they were going to encircle her if danger neared, like a pack of wolves.

As they walked down the middle of the street in almost total darkness, they felt more like the loner kind of wolves, with no sign of life anywhere other than themselves. As they passed, there seemed to be an accumulating amount of papers blowing through the empty streets like tumbleweeds. As Ray got a better look around, he noticed that they were flying off of power lines. "Stay here," he barked as he ambled toward one such pole, looking at the leaves pinned to it. It displayed photos and bold letters stating **MISSING** at the top of almost every one, with the hardly any saying **FOUND**. Against his word, his children had already joined him, looking at the makeshift notice board, too.

"Look," Rachel said excitedly. "They're looking for us!"

On a bright yellow piece of paper standing out in a sea of white, was another missing notice, only taped to it was a picture of he, Robbie, Rachel, and Mary Ann back at his house in Jersey. His heart swelled as he read:

Missing 

**_Ray, 40, Robbie, 15, and Rachel, 10_**

**_Last seen on _****_November 12, 2005_****_, Newark, NY_**

**_If you have any information, please contact Tim and Mary Ann Cohen at _****_1151 Wells Ave._**

"1151 Wells? That isn't her parents' address…" Ray muttered. "Where is that?"

"There's a chunk ripped off of the paper, too," Robbie observed, tearing the piece from the pole. "Maybe there's another somewhere else—Rachel?"

Rachel stood in the very center of the street, shaking as she craned her head upward. There seemed to be a flood of crimson light showering down on them, and Robbie and Ray looked up, too.

The moon had just peaked out from behind a veil of dark cloud, offering light, but Ray wished it hadn't. The sphere, once a beautiful white disc hanging in the night sky, was the color of blood. It, Ray realized, was covered in the red weed.

The Ferrier men turned their heads when an ominous thump rang through their ears. Rachel was collapsed in a crumpled heap on the asphalt, twitching and shivering.

"Rachel!" Ray screamed, sprinting over to her side and kneeling to hold her head in his arms. "Rachel, baby, no… no, don't do this to me, not now, Rach…" Ray now slid her whole fragile body into his arms, and stood up. "Rae… God, Rachel, wake up!"

Robbie simply was paralyzed in absolute horror as he watched from afar. "We—need to get to a hospital… or something." He whispered after a while of examination his father's growth of panic.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly. "But where is it—"

"Hold on!" Robbie interrupted. "Wells Avenue! We're near the intersection! I remember!" he cried, and took off running. With a moment's pause, Ray followed his son's figure through the diffused scarlet light. Suddenly, Robbie halted at the fork, beaming wickedly at the green sign displaying 'Wells Ave.'. "We're almost there!" he darted away again, maybe even forgetting the urgency of the situation for a moment.

By the time Ray had reached him again, Rachel's weight numbing his arms, Robbie was looking at the enormous cream-colored complex:

_Amblin Hospital_

_1151 Wells Avenue_


End file.
